Liquid crystal display devices have been widely used in cellular phones and liquid crystal televisions because of their thin thickness and low power consumption. Especially, an active matrix driving liquid crystal display device including a switching element at every pixel which is a minimum unit of an image can reliably turn on each pixel and therefore can provide high definition moving picture display.
The active matrix driving liquid crystal display device is formed by components such as a liquid crystal display panel having an active matrix substrate including, for example, a thin film transistor (hereinafter, referred to as “TFT”) in every pixel as a switching element, a counter substrate provided so as to face the active matrix substrate and including a color filter, and a liquid crystal layer provided between these substrates. The thickness of the liquid crystal layer, that is, the cell thickness, is defined by a spacer held between the active matrix substrate and the counter substrate.
For example, Patent document 1 discloses a liquid crystal display panel using spherical bead spacers as a spacer defining the cell thickness. In this liquid crystal display panel, a protruding partition wall for preventing the bead spacers from moving into pixels is formed at the boundary between each pixel and a black matrix on a substrate on which the beads spacers are arranged. Patent document 1 describes that this structure can suppress defective display due to light leakage and abnormal orientation caused by movement of the bead spacers.
Patent document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-258137